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Sunday Puzzle: You TOR Through it!

Sunday Puzzle
NPR
Sunday Puzzle

On-air challenge: When you're done with today's puzzle, I hope you can say you tore through it. Every answer is a word or name with the accented syllable "tor" somewhere inside.

Ex. Like important things from the past --> HISTORIC
1. Kind of college that selects the U.S. president
2. 19th-century English queen
3. Opinion piece in a newspaper
4. Class with one-on-one instruction
5. Well-known for something bad
6. Person who gets all bent out of shape
7. Math function signaled by an exclamation point
9. ___ Guinea (Central African country)
10. Administrative capital of South Africa
11. Use of force or threats to get money
12. Large room for a school gathering
13. Chicken ___ (Japanese dish)
14 Kind of question that's not meant to have an answer

Last week's challenge: Last week's challenge came from listener Peter Collins, of Ann Arbor, Mich. Think of a well-known author (9,6). Change the first letter of the last name and anagram those six letters to spell a word. Now read everything together — the author's first name plus the anagram with a letter changed of the last name — and you'll get a certain professional athlete. Who was it?

Challenge answer: Charlotte Bronte --> Charlotte Hornet

Winner: Julia Wheeler of Kansas City, Missouri.

This week's challenge: This week's challenge comes from listener Chad Graham, of Philadelphia. Name a famous singer (6,4). Remove the last letter of the first name and the first letter of the last name. The result, reading left to right, is a word for some singing. What is it?

Submit Your Answer

If you know the answer to the challenge, submit it here by Thursday, June 8th at 3 p.m. ET. Listeners whose answers are selected win a chance to play the on-air puzzle. Important: include a phone number where we can reach you.

Copyright 2023 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Will Shortz
NPR's Puzzlemaster Will Shortz has appeared on Weekend Edition Sunday since the program's start in 1987. He's also the crossword editor of The New York Times, the former editor of Games magazine, and the founder and director of the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (since 1978).